"There has always been a temptation to classify economic goods in clearly defined groups, about which a number of short and sharp propositions could be made, to gratify at once the student’s desire for logical precision, and the popular liking for dogmas that have the air of being profound and are yet easily handled. But great mischief seems to have been done by yielding to this temptation, and drawing broad artificial lines of division where Nature has made none. The more simple and absolute an economic doctrine is, the greater will be the confusion which it brings into attempts to apply economic doctrines to practice, if the dividing lines to which it refers cannot be found in real life. There is not in real life a clear line of division between things that are and are not Capital, or that are and are not Necessaries, or again between labour that is and is not Productive."
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University of Cambridge facultyEconomists from EnglandNon-fiction authors from EnglandPeople from LondonUniversity of Oxford faculty
Original Language: English
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Preface to the 1st edition
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alfred_Marshall
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Alfred Marshall
1842 – 1924
Alfred Marshall (26 July 1842 – 13 July 1924) was a British economist, considered one of the most influential economists of his time. His book, Principles of Economics (1890), was the dominant economic textbook in England for many years. It brings the ideas of supply and demand, marginal utility, and costs of production into a coherent whole. He is known as one of the founders of economics.
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